Calling it the Way I See it Since 1995…

DJ Kool wanted to clear his throat. I’m going to clear my conscience, because I cannot have the pent up anger that I have regarding the employment and business development aspect of today’s society. I cannot keep my mouth closed and I cannot turn a blind eye; even if I were not being directly affected by what’s going on. I’m going to call a spade a spade and if you are easily offended, then you might want to stop reading now (and furthermore, why are you on my page? I don’t keep those types of people around me on Facebook or in daily face-to-face contact???)

I have written about this topic in great detail over the past three years. Each time, my anger has grown further. I read an article in the Huffington Post late last night before I went to bed and there were some sobering statistics in there. I didn’t need to read the stats for verification, I see it daily and I am a walking embodiment and the face of what’s systematically-wrong with the hiring practices throughout this country — not just New York City.

Anytime your resume lands you numerous phone calls and interview requests and you get a poor poker face once your Anglo-sounding name and non-descript/average New Yorker professional voice doesn’t tip them off that you’re a Black dude from the hood — well, you know the deal. I hate it for guys who have been given these ridiculous names that aren’t at least found some place in the Bible or Qu’ran (which, unfortunately results in discrimination here, even if it is an upstanding name found in that book of faith) or elsewhere. Let’s face it, Black and Brown is threatening all around town and they gon’ make us burn this city down to the ground! (Yes, I said that with my Dolemite Voice).

I am down in TriBeCa (or whatever the real estate hacks are calling it nowadays) pretty regularly. And I run into a lot of people who in the streets complaining about this very subject LOUDLY. As some of you know, the city’s main Food Stamps Distribution Center is down on Walker, so you will see a lot of unemployed and public assistance candidates hanging around near there — a stark irony in the middle of an exclusive residential neighborhood where rents routinely exceed $10,000 per month, but I digress.

I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve had phone interviews, gotten my resume to land me massive compliments and what not, only to go through the 1-4 interview sessions and never even receive a courtesy call in response after many attempts via phone, email and, in a couple of cases, actually showing up back at the company to inquire in person. Some people have become so accustomed to lying and are lifelong bigots, that they have excellent poker faces. But the ones whose poker faces are nubile, their reaction is palpable, particularly when you initially walk into the office, well-dressed, well-spoken, well-recommended, education and professional experience in tow. If I weren’t always pissed off as a result of these interactions, I’d laugh. I ought to begin taking a video camera with me and attach it to my glasses whenever I go into these interviews just so you can see how frequently this happens.

I did tell you all that I had 35 interviews in the first quarter (i.e. to this point) last year, right? How many jobs did I come away with?

ONE.

And that was with Rapid Realty, who I interviewed with on March 31 last year and was “hired” on the spot. No need to revisit how that went. I have a couple of people on here who worked for Rapid before. They can co-sign in great detail anything I would say.

Sobering statistics indeed. Furthermore, when you consider who is and ISN’T being factored into those numbers, you realize they are much worse off. The people coming off their 13, 26, 39, 52 or 99 weeks of unemployment are not counted in those numbers. Those who are self-employed (and struggling, and cannot get unemployment benefits because they do not have an “established benefit quarter” — which is some bullshit, especially if you pay taxes just like everyone else) are not counted. Recidivists are not counted nor are college students.

Think about that for a minute.

As the saying goes, “When things are bad for Americans, they are twice as bad for Black Americans and THREE TIMES as bad for the Black man”.

And it is such when it comes to this topic of unemployment. White men have it tough also. Hispanic men (depending on their country of origin) have it tough also. Typically, Asian men have had the lowest unemployment rate of any non-Jewish men and that continues to be true. How many homeless/shelter-bound Asian or Jewish men do you see? I’ll wait for you to conjure up more than three… in your LIFETIME.

I get so sick of the “man up!” sentiment from ruthless scalawags who themselves got the jobs that most men could have gotten or were almost guaranteed to walk in and have out of college as little as five to ten years ago. Those same women have the nerve to look down their noses at guys who are struggling, with or without a bachelors and/or advanced degrees, with or without an unparalleled drive to succeed and fulfill purpose. I don’t get it. Be glad you have a job, regardless if you got it because you’re less-threatening to the establishment’s ego than a well-educated Black man. Be glad you have a job, given that they partly employ you because they know they can get away with underpaying you.

WRITTEN BY A WOMAN WHO IS A WIFE AND A MOTHER — and the wife of a man who is underemployed. I say “Bravo” and “Kudos” for her for being one of the few women who have pulled their respective heads out of their asses long enough to realize (even though I doubt she fully sees it, as most non-economist/non-Black man rarely sees it) what’s really going on here. There is a shift taking place when it comes to gender roles, sure. There is a shift in perception about what it means to be a “breadwinner” and there is also a shift taking place with regards to the systematic racism that is only ever-increasing in this country. The sad part about that last statement is that the very people who say “Get over it, it’s 2011!” are the very ones who unwittingly propagate and perpetuate the subversive tactics of “ignore it and it will go away” that have allowed systematic discrimination and racism to bubble underneath the surface during this Pussified Generation of Political Correctness.

Too bad most people do not see it. And I’m not even a “race card” guy. I just call things socially as I see them, particularly through the lens of someone who came up through the sociological discipline.

Yes, it’s going to take some ingenuity and witty inventions to create businesses (with poor credit and total lack of capital?) for some guys to make it from now on. It’s going to take a ratcheted-up effort in the realm of networking to make inroads in areas where underrepresentation has always been a problem. It’s going to take compassionate and understanding women who are not so hell-bent about competing with men and rubbing her husband’s or significant other’s nose in his situation 24/7.

One thing women will never fully and truly understand is that men are created to work. Men are passionate about work. Yeah, you may know a guy who sits home and mooches off his girl or his moms and plays video games all day, doesn’t lift a finger to clean or cook or assist around the house in any way, and doesn’t put forth any effort to better his situation.

But despite what some may think, those guys are still a very isolated minority. Even some of the guys who resort to those activities didn’t get there overnight — it is usually the result of consistent rejection over a period of YEARS, not one or two rejections and obstacles — before they resign themselves to just not trying as hard anymore.

Men want to work. Socially, we have been pushed even more to believe we are to work, on top of the commandment from God and how we were wired to be providers, covering and protection for our homes. When we have to go months or YEARS (in my case and in the case of many, many men I know) without full-time employment, it can wear your psyche down to mud. You can be the most supremely confident (myself included) man out there but when you apply for 35,000 jobs over a period of exactly five years (my personal situation), and only come away with hustle jobs, part-time contracts and thankless minimum-wage sales jobs that require you to wear suits that would consume a month’s pay at said job (yes, macy’s) to purchase — well, you begin to get upset. And at times, depressed.

I know the way out of depression, so I never had prolonged bouts with it. But what about the guys who do? Who is there to help them? Furthermore, I have a healthy support system, regardless if they are here in New York City, out in New Jersey, upstate New York, down in North Carolina and Virginia or Florida or even in California and Kuwait, Ghana and wherever family that I actually communicate with actually reside. With technological advances, it has made it easier for us to communicate over boundless distances and with the support system I have in place, I have avoided completely losing my mind.

But to revisit (because I cannot for the life me understand how I can explain my situation through and through and people are still lost as to what the dynamic is here) my situation, I have to go into it chronologically.

In July 2004, I was at a dead-end, but well-paying job. I was making $35,000, but getting another $10,000-$15,000 annually in bonuses and cashed-in stock options, and a healthy five-figure 401(k) as well. I hated my job. It didn’t challenge me. Sorority girls were the “bosses” out there, meaning if you were not a divine nine greek guy, you weren’t getting a job, even if you laid the pipe to any of these nasty broads. Given that I was in the midst of my Vow of Purity, and they were mostly homely, that wasn’t happening.

But that’s neither here nor there.

A ministry friend of mine at the time gave me a prophetic word about where I would go from there and that there were things that I needed to do in order to prepare myself for where the LORD was taking me. I was actually excited to hear it, not just because it was good news to my ears in the midst of those doldrums, but I really truly believed it.

Remember, prophecy isn’t supposed to be some earth-shattering, monumental event for a man of God, it’s supposed to be a reminder, a quickening, a re-awakening of something that was already inside you and God is using that person to speak to that rekindling inside you through the prophetic word. Let’s not get it twisted, here.

So I enrolled into UNC Greensboro, six years after withdrawing from Long Island University. I felt like a fish out of water going back to school with 18, 19 year olds and I (after initially postponing my enrollment to January 2005). As I’ve mentioned before, during this time, I worked full-time at Aetna until my departure about a year later, worked on developing a non-profit from scratch with my cousin, was serving over a ministry 3-4 days a week for two and a half years and also going to UNCG full-time. Never question my work ethic or productivity. My GPA was 3.85, I was off the charts (even being half-assed with my work there at Aetna) with my KPMs, ministry at LEAST began to shift from being a veritable meat market of a bunch of cackling broads who got together every month and one or two unfortunate souls of men showing up periodically when they had nothing else better to do, to a thriving gathering of single Christians who could fellowship with one another and grow in Christ. I am proud of that. But I had to leave as with the territory (married or not, and obviously I was single), women are unscrupulous. Especially in the church.

But that’s another topic for another day.

I left that post in early 2007 and gradually stopped going to church altogether because of the things I’ve seen in ministry first-hand from the BOWELS. I do not use that as an excuse, because my own sin, disobedience and rebellion is partly why (in my opinion) things haven’t gotten better. But of course if that were solely the reason, and that logic were applied across the board, would ANYONE in this city be successful? Seriously?

We struggled throughout 2005 to get our articles of incorporation and by-laws, budget and 501(c)3 application submitted. We had to wait months to get our NPO acknowledged by the state of North Carolina before we could go forward with the 501(c)3 in Cincinnati. We had to wait throughout 2006, unprecedented wait of 10 months — before we finally received our delegation as a NPO with the IRS. This was a week before Thanksgiving in 2006.

Rewind a little bit, though.

Remember I told you I was fed up with my job in 2004? I complained daily for well over a year. The final few months I was there, I had to literally peel myself from bed to go to work every day. I was consistently late, always sick with some sort of allergy, asthma or lung infection/sinus infection every other month it seemed. It wasn’t that I was overworked and not resting properly, just that the job was literally driving me nuts and the physical sickness would linger for weeks at a time before I felt any better. I would only feel better when I came back to New York every spring, spend the summer and come back in the fall. Otherwise, I was miserable the final 18 months I was with Aetna.

My boss, an AKA, always had an axe to grind with me. At the time (no longer wasting effort, no longer care to even speak on the subject either way), I was on a crusade to expose greek letter organizations and they found this information on my computer in 2004. Being a cocky Harlem dude with flashy clothes, a brand new $40,000 sports car and attention from the actual GOOD LOOKING women at the office, this pissed this broad off (and her boss, who was a DST) to no end.

I hated the job, but I still wanted to maintain the income while I matriculated through college. I made effort sales pitch from splitting my schedule, to a staggered schedule, to working from home (which many people were doing), and they were all met with immediate “NO”s with no sort of thought put into it by either my immediate boss or her boss — the two I mentioned previously.

Okay.

So I put in my letter of resignation, because I am sure they were trying to concoct a way to fire me anyway. I left with my dignity intact.

However, I had to live off my savings for the next year. I had 12 stacks when I left Aetna in August 2005, so I was good for a hot minute. I had money coming in from a few side things, so I figured once we got our NPO going and our wage from that, surely I would not miss a beat financially.

THIS IS WHERE THINGS TOOK THE TURN TO WHERE THEY ARE NOW. And if you can do basic math, this didn’t just begin YESTERDAY — which I shake my head and chuckle at when I hear people who have been out of work for TWO MONTHS fretting and contemplating leaping from the Empire State Building.

I was paying a $540 car payment, $100 car insurance, $100 phone bill, $1,200 in credit card bills and still paying for a portion of my tuition and fees out of pocket at UNCG. I saw the writing on the wall in late April of 2006 and I began feverishly looking for jobs. We had to wait the entire year of 2006 to receive our 501(c)3 designation, remember, and without that, you are not going to get much funding for an NPO unless you are well-connected. And as novices to the NPO world, we were definitely NOT.

The next time you tell someone to man up, go back and see if you could even walk a day in their fucking shoes first. You couldn’t last one month in the life I’ve had to live since 2006.

If you are Christian and offended by my language, I apologize. Again, I am clearing my conscience here. Allow me this, so I can get the anger off my chest once and for all so that I don’t have to revisit this level of angst anymore down the line.

I landed a temp contract with a partner NPO, but that was short-lived. She’s screwed over everyone who was willing to work for her at those disturbingly low wages (while her do-nothing husband was making $55,000 for… DOING NOTHING BUT SITTING ON HIS ROTUND ASS AND SPEWING GEECHIE GIBBERISH ALL DAY) and they’re struggling to remain open. You reap what you sow.

So I go on unemployment for the first time in my life at age 27. Very sobering. The chick I was dating up until this point shows her materialistic motives and leaves me for someone else. That was the beginning of everyone around me showing their true colors and I appreciate it, because my circle is trimmed to 241 on Facebook (and more like 11 or 12 outside of it) ever since. Thanks guys.

I then had to come to the realization that I was going to not only have to sell my car, but sell it for well below market value, considering the work I put into it (no tacky custom kits, just super audio and a few subtle body changes). I had to sell it December 2006 for $13,000, a good $10,000 less than it was worth and what I owed on it. Even if I did have $90,000 miles on it in just under four years (the car had been literally everywhere between New York and Florida), it was in excellent shape and everything was brand new, minus the engine.

That really set me back 100 fold, because living in Greensboro for most of every year, you must have a car to get around, to get to and from job interviews and ultimately, to and from a job.

That hindered my efforts tremendously. It also hindered being able to arrange meetings for the NPO and solicit potential funding partners because I could not make meetings without borrowing someone’s car. This is when I initially began getting pissed off. People in the church are so busy trying to look like Jakes, Dollar and the others with their fancy cars that they don’t even give two shits about someone else in the body — which I THOUGHT was in the Bible. So you KNOW if they couldn’t care less about someone like me, highly visible being in ministry and just being highly visible in general around Greensboro — well you know they ain’t doing no real ministry out in the hood and in the streets. My own personal ministry began to develop around this time, because these are the very people who have my heart now. I don’t even look at homeless people the same way. I don’t run to another car on the subway when I see them. When they’re not acting like an angry bear or wounded lion, I’ll even speak with them and give them what little I can in terms of cash or food. That wasn’t me before 2004, let me tell ya.

By 2007, I had to move ON CAMPUS. Mind you, I was two months short of my 28th birthday at this point. I had just sold off my car and had no income whatsoever. We decided to put a hold on the NPO, because we couldn’t do any work. I had spent the latter half of 2006 (left the “partner” NPO that I mentioned at the end of June) looking for work while on unemployment. I had a two-bit part-time, back-breaking job that I was duped into taking by the ghoulish broad who told me I was going to be doing floor sales when I got there.

Nope.

She just wanted some lug to do stock 24/7 and I damn sure was not going back to that grunt work after hurting my back in my original car accident in 1999 and compromising it in two other accidents after that. I was already starting to feel the degeneration of the disks in my spinal column before I took the job and this job surely set me up for what was to come in 2007.

Spring 2007 semester was a struggle. I went through officials’ training to get my whistle (i.e. referee basketball) and finished. I reffed a semester’s of games before the next to last game before the championship where I was accused of being a Dick Bavetta or Joe Crawford. But unlike them, I nearly came to blows and instead of duffin’ this White dude who lived on my hall — the one who got in my face about a call that I actually got correct — I walked out in the middle of the second half and tossed the whistle onto the floor. Believe me, it was either that or I was going to be banned from the Rec Center for the remainder of my time at UNCG and end up down on Washington Street needing $2,500 bail.

I applied for job after job, even interviewed BACK at Aetna when they solicited me to come back. Interviewed at United Health, interviewed at CarMax and countless other places. Nothing. I had over 500 job applications by that summer.

I came back to New York and took my mind off this mess for the summer. I was with my cousins out on Staten Island mostly, with a few trips to the old spots in Harlem mixed in. I ate like a cow all summer, but I was still very active. I went back to North Carolina a couple of days before the Fall 2007 semester began and then the bottom fell out.

The very first Saturday of the semester, my roommate Phil and his then-girlfriend/now-wife Shauna and I were playing basketball. Of course those who know me know I still had my 42″ vertical at the time, so he was throwing me alleys and I liked to throw them down hard. I caught one and was too far from the rim, tried to “Sprewell” it (my nickname from the guys I used to run hoops with 5 days a week back in the day) and jammed my shoulder. I was out of commission for two months with that. Three weeks after it healed, I did my patented Step-Back move, came down on my left leg, still managed to get the shot up — but in the midst of it, heard a loud CRUNCH; similar to that of a good-sized tree branch snapping.

There went my back.

I crumpled to the floor like Bernard King in ’85 and pretty much couldn’t play ball anymore. I tried, but would get severe pains in my back in left leg, which I didn’t know at the time was sciatica and fluid from the ruptured disk leaking into my spinal column. People thought I was faking for whatever reason, but I missed out on a chance to play on a good team with my roommate because of it — and the team lost early on in the tournament.

How I dealt with that for an entire year is beyond me, but I limped to class for a semester and a half and my GPA limped right (down) with me. I was in and out of doctors’ offices, sedated almost all the time and naturally couldn’t work. Just an awful year from October 2007 until September 2008 (when I finally had surgery).

The surgery involved a lumbar microdiskectomy, which meant that it was done by laser and less invasive. They did have to break the TRANSVERSE PROCESS to get to the disk, which turned my stomach after seeing it on MRI, but I really didn’t have much pain and was ready to go back to school within 3 days. Being the stubborn goat I am, I went home immediately after the anesthesia wore off, no overnight stay. The doctors said I was free to go. The surgery naturally cost an arm and a leg and you can put that on the boooooooard… NO. (Hawk Harrelson Voice) Still paying for it today.

Long story short, 2008 was a collosal waste, because I wasn’t cleared to do anything but WALK by my doctor until the summer of 2008. I came back to New York and this time didn’t venture out much during the summer; just choosing to hang around Harlem until school came back into session.

The final year at UNCG, I took the initiative by trying to line up jobs before my final semester even began. Came back to New York TWICE interviewing for jobs before and after Spring Break before finally moving back IMMEDIATELY after graduation in May 2009. No job, no prospects. I did get this little camp counselor gig at Staten Island Day Camp, where I was forced to go because I got some shady “relatives” who treat total strangers better than they treat blood. But that job was only good for one thing — getting me down from 210 stocky pounds back down to 185.

The fall following that summer camp job, I lost two grandparents and DID manage to land a gig through a staffing agency. I finished most of the fourth quarter there before the assignment ended and I was back at square one (mind you, I have been saving all of my applications on my email server, and those numbers exceeded 25,000 going into 2010). Even when I found work, I was always applying and looking elsewhere. These were not career moves. These were “survival” jobs and 2010 was more of the same.

The first quarter of 2010, I interviewed 35 times by my birthday, and landed the gig with Rapid Realty the day afterward. I had done a couple of assignments earlier in the year with Robert Half and separately, Office Team (although the same conglomerate), following an epic FIVE INTERVIEW waste of time with Equinox Fitness on 33rd and Park. I still have no idea what the hell happened there but that was the perfect gig for me. I obviously interviewed excellently. They brought me in FIVE TIMES and had me meeting everyone over the HR department and even some of the lower level HR generalists. I don’t get it.

But as the year wore on, Rapid Realty WORE ON ME. I lost wild weight because I was in Brooklyn 2-3 days a week walking upwards of 5 miles out there ALONE. Not to mention the Manhattan walking and, until I moved back Uptown, the commute from Staten Island — which was 6 hours round-trip — on top of that.

Mixed in all this were two trips to the SHELTER. Yes, the SHELTER. I got relatives all over this city and many of them in jobs where all they have to do is say a word and I’ve got a job, and I had to go to the SHELTER. Not a room share, not a room share… we talkin’ bout… SHELTER.. SHELTER MAN! We talkin’ about SHELTER MAN.. not a house, not a home that I love and give my right arm for… we talkin’ bout… SHELTER. SHELTER, MAN! I MEAN… HOW SILLY IS DAT??? (some of you won’t get that, but inbox me and I guarantee you’ll eventually find it funny).

Finally, I reached out to an old friend, right — NOT A RELATIVE — who had extra space and somewhat understood what I’ve been dealing with. She allowed me to move in and get situated so I could get back on my feet and move on. With my determination and being back in Manhattan, that made things a lot easier for me to get accomplished. And for the first two weeks, things moved swiftly. I did have to go on public assistance, no shame there — but I they had us doing useless activities downtown 35 hours a week, which severely hindered any real TRUE job search efforts. I got back into school to begin my Masters and things were progressing nicely…

UNTIL IT CAME TO FINANCIAL AID.

I had to haggle with Mercy College for two months to get my initial aid check, but because there was no job in place (I got what I initially thought was going to be a full-time job at Yahoo, just two days before finally receiving my financial aid refund), I couldn’t immediately move into my own place. I had the cash, but no one would allow me to sign a lease without a proven job with W-2 and tax returns from the previous three years. Oh yes, I wrote about this ever-growing phenomena (bullshit, in layman’s terms) that is taking place in Harlem, making it virtually impossible to find a place to live unless you make at least $50,000. And given that no one is even HIRING, much less the ones who will hire you at $50,000 worth of work at $20,000 worth of pay, needless to say this makes things incredibly difficult for almost everyone.

Remember the statistics from before?

Nationally, the Labor Department STATES that “Black Unemployment” is about 16%. Well, DOUBLE that for Harlem. That’s right, 33% of Black men in Harlem are unemployed. ONE IN TWO is on public assistance and let me tell you 3/4 of them would rather NOT be, regardless of what you see on TV in terms of ignorant comments and actions and despite what Cam’ron would lead you to believe in his songs. Black women fare much better when it comes to landing jobs, as they are perceived as “less threatening” and companies can get away with paying them less (even if the women don’t realize it).

How then, can you expect someone to afford to be able to pay rent someplace around here, with these systematic boundaries being erected to ENSURE the disenfranchisement of an entire group of people? I’ll wait for an answer there.

I REALLY WANT SOMEONE TO INTELLIGENTLY COUNTER THAT.

Oh, and one last thing — enough with the “move someplace else” bullshit. I’m sick of hearing that. Do YOU want to just pick up and move someplace where you don’t know anyone without any kind of guidance or instruction by God? I didn’t think so. I’m not moving “back?” south, because I never had any intention to go back down there when I left New York the first time. For those who know me intimately, you know I left here against my will in the 90s.

I’m not leaving my roots and all the things I’m tied to (the GOOD things), new business contacts, new friendships, new relationships on the horizon that are promising and all the other things that are beneficial and inherently only available here for the CHANCE that I might find a friggin’ job in Yankton, South Dakota or some random place where jobs are “plentiful”.

I just want these people to cut the bull and come out with the real reason why I, and many other Black men like me (no disrespect to everyone else who struggles to find the job, but for as bad as it is for you, it’s THREE TIMES worse for Black men and that cannot be disputed — the facts bear it out) are having to tell this same story over and over and over and no one is doing anything about it.

Enough with the “start your own business” angle. I’ve done that before. Do you not realize that’s a great deal of the reason why I am still stuck to this day? The amount of debt I incurred during the three year period of starting and sustaining myself during the formation of that NPO, and all the debt I had to use to buoy myself through college? Now, my credit score, which was once 814, is shot like Patrick Ewing’s knees as a result? Starting a business not only takes bravery, risk and smarts, but CAPITAL. And when you do not have capital NOR the credit score to borrow, you ain’t starting a business without some serious outside help. And being surrounded by inherently selfish (read: Black, Puerto (Nuyoricans anyway) people, no one seems to want to do anything other than to pay lip service to doing business. Outside of the one or two that I have met in the last few months who are ready to work.

And to the people who have NEVER been through more than worrying about if they got a B+ on a fucking chemistry lab, STOP WITH THE BIBLE RHETORIC. I’m really sick and tired of it. Even knowing the Bible back and forth, growing up in a preaching home and being in ministry, there’s only so much of this shit you can take — five years of utter bullshit and being relegated to having to ask someone to help you avoid the shelter, not even getting a serious consideration for jobs and dealing with fuckery that comes with daily life? (yeah, yeah, yeah, cursing doesn’t indicate that, but I don’t hide my sins).

However, let’s dig in your closet for a minute… OOOOPS — that skeletal remain from that bone damn near knocked me out, B!!!

Anyway, I have to school some’a y’all, because I swear I can tell my story verbatim 100 times to some people and they still don’t get it.

Mercy College has been so inconsistent with their practices. They told us in the fall 2010 semester that 6 credit hours would have to be completed before we would receive our funds. We finished 6 and I got my funds the following week.

They come back in this semester (spring 2011) and say that we have to satisfy 9 credit hours AND the Integrated Case Study session, before the government releases the funds for them to disburse to us — ON APRIL 30TH???

Why the discrepancy. How are people supposed to live when the whole reason they even risk going into debt to borrow against their education is to offset the cost of living (rent, utilities, daily misc., car fare, etc.) and you have to wait an entire semester to receive it?

SIDE NOTE: Yeah, yeah, yeah, people say I should freelance write or get paid for it, but you do realize being a skilled writer isn’t enough to land a gig that pays, right? Writing a book takes time, also. You don’t just put it together overnight, particularly when you don’t know how you will eat next month or if you will have a roof over your head. Sure, it can be done, but I would rather be on solid ground and have a secure place to live of my own before I venture into something that will at LEAST require months and months before I see any money from the work.